


operation let's get (rid of) this mf depression, bois

by QQI25



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-03
Updated: 2018-11-03
Packaged: 2019-08-17 07:29:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16511912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QQI25/pseuds/QQI25
Summary: Peter accidentally posts a rant on Spider-Man's Instagram account instead of his personal.Based off a tumblr post by racing-faster and bundibird





	operation let's get (rid of) this mf depression, bois

**Author's Note:**

> wHAT'S NEW PUSSY CATS??? title's based off the "gOOD SCHMORNING GAMERS LET'S GET THIS BREADDDDDD" meme. just felt it fitting bc ig nd spidey who's defo a meme queen. sry if it's cringey! lmaooo am i rly tho???

Peter makes the Instagram account on a whim. He’s been so good at keeping Spider-Man under wraps (only a few people know), but he’s bursting to share those adventures with more people. So he does. He pops on over to Instagram, makes an account with the handle @SpiderMan, puts “your friendly neighborhood spider-man!!” with some spider and web emojis in the bio, and posts a selfie of him in the suit on a rooftop with the caption “it’s abt time i made a presence on the interwebs”. He’s pretty proud of himself for that pun. 

He climbs pretty quickly. It gets verified, which wow! He doesn’t know that he expected that. He steadily gains followers ‘til one morning he wakes up to see he’s got over 1,000,000 followers. It makes him ecstatic. He posts pictures of himself when he’s got nothing to do, pictures of him eating from and at various restaurants and diners and delis and food trucks, and videos of himself doing cool flips and tricks. He gets a mix of good and bad comments, although he doesn’t quite understand the concept of wasting time on something if you hate it. 

But the success of the account doesn’t equate to success in real life. In real life, he’s started college, and he gets almost-daily moments where he asks himself if this is really what he wants, where he panics because there’s not enough time in the world to do everything he needs and wants to do. Sometimes it drives him to tears. Most of the time he has patrolling as an “out”, as a coping mechanism. And even then, it’s not always good. Yes it means fresh air and thinking time, but it means _thinking time_ , and sometimes it means more examples of his efforts doing fuck all. In real life, Aunt May’s concern can be overbearing and smothering. In real life, adjusting to a new school and new schedules and new concerns means less time with his best friends. It makes him question whether they’re really his friends, whether they actually find him bearable. Which means coping with things alone. And coping with things alone leads to stress. Like, constantly. And the Spidey Sense doesn’t help any. Heightened senses and anxiety are a _very bad_ combination. 

His other way of coping with stress is posting to Peter Parker’s Instagram account. He never bothered to make a “rinsta”, because he’d grown to be used to bullies like Flash and the fact that he’s kinda average-looking and having a rinsta would be weird for a nerd like him. So he doesn’t. He posts his aesthetic pictures and his goofy pictures to the same account. He has thoughtful captions and funny captions and those _really bad day_ captions. He honestly feels bad for his followers because of how many of the last kind of captions he’s starting to have. 

It’s 2am and he’s done with patrol. It’d been an uneventful one and that hadn’t helped his mood any. He’d finished classes today feeling suddenly overwhelmed and then it’d welled up inside of him until he had to patrol to get that nervous energy out. Not that it’d helped. He still feels restless, though he also feels tired. His brain is racing but his body’s getting exhausted. It’s 2am and he feels like making a post, so he does. He posts a picture of his desk and writes the caption “wOw my life is falljng apart and i lvoe it!!! don’t u just love this for me??? idek if my feiends are still my friends bc we like don’t tlk in person anymore but it’s FINE it’s not like i unehealthily depend on them to keep my spirits up nd besides why dhld i bother them w this shit they’ve got their own college shit nd lfie shit to handle nd I’m alwyas the ahppy person so tht wld be weird. nd i love my aunt but srsly sometimes she stresses me tf out nd she’s concerned which luke cool but there’s a pt where it gets overwhelming!!! nd tht pt for me isntm v much obvs. also school is shit!! i ques my choices nd my classes like evry day!! i feel like crying like rvry day!!! nd the internhsip is just great!!! I’m like doing nothing i don’t help at all. bottom line evrythngs always awful but it’s fine!! we lvo tht for me!!!” After he posts it, he kills all his apps, sets his alarm, and lays awake staring at the ceiling. Falling asleep is gonna be hard tonight. 

The next morning when he checks his phone, he’s kinda surprised the buzzing hadn’t woken him up. There’s an influx of notifications from Instagram, the earliest of which is about a new post from @IronManOfficial. He clicks that and is met with a selfie of Tony without a mask. The caption says “TBH Spider-Man is hands down my favorite superhero. He does so much to help so many people and he makes such a big goddamn difference in NYC. If I were to retire (notice the “if” because it’s not gonna happen anytime soon if I have any say), I could do so knowing confidently and comfortably that he’s out there and has got the city’s back.” It warms his heart, but he’s also confused as to why Tony’s suddenly making a post like this. And then he realises the notifications are all from Spider-Man’s account, and he checks his profile. Fuck! He’d posted the rant to Spider-Man’s account instead of Peter’s. Very apprehensively and hesitantly, he clicks to the Notifications page. There’s so, so many supportive messages, ranging from just heart emojis to walls of text. It makes him cry, and he decides to keep this post. If he can’t handle having it public, then he’ll archive it, but it’ll never be deleted. What has he got to lose by people knowing this side of him? It doesn’t have personal information. He knows how much Tony cares about him, which means Tony cares about Aunt May and Ned and MJ and will make sure they’re safe. And anyway, isn’t it better for people to know that the people they idolise have these sides too? He also has a notification from Messages, so he opens it. It’s from Tony, and it says “I’ve been where u are now plenty of times, kiddo. U ever need an ear or shoulder, u know where I am. I support u no matter what.” He hugs his phone close for a few seconds, then responds with “thank u so much tony” and finally feels ready to face the day. 

On the subway he sees a fairly inconspicuous doodle that has “NYC”, a heart, and the Spider-Man face logo in a neat little column. He smiles. On the streets, he sees the media’s usual treatment of public figures with articles about how his “mental instability” adds to the already-monumental list of reasons why Spider-Man isn’t fit to guard New York. But then he sees even _more_ pro-Spidey graffiti than usual, little doodles like the subway one and huge murals he doesn’t understand how people had the time to draw. 

After class, when he opens up Buzzfeed to go take some quizzes, he sees a shitton of articles on the homepage with Spider-Man as the thumbnail. Curiously, he checks out each one. There are top ten lists of why people love Spider-Man, lists acknowledging how he helps out people. The second type of list is surprising. He’d been expecting like, examples of him helping stop muggers, or helping old ladies, and shit like that, but there’s also how adoption shelters have gotten more business because he posts pictures of the animals he saves on his account. There’s how businesses have gained popularity because Spider-Man compliments their food and/or service. There’s how lots of people have become more hopeful knowing there’s people like Spider-Man who patrol just to make sure the little guy’s safe. There’s how people have gained more of an interest in gymnastics because of his videos. He hadn’t considered that aspect of his impact at all, and it really does comfort him. He bookmarks all these articles. 

Back home, he opens up Instagram and likes the rest of the comments he hadn’t gotten to, which, honestly, there are a shitton of comments, but it’s been giving him something uplifting to think about throughout today, and is a big help in boosting his self-image. That last fact is kinda sad, but he doesn’t dwell on it. Not right now. Right now, he posts a picture of that doodle on the subway with the caption “hey guys i hadn’t meant to post tht yest lmao whoops but u guys hv been so kind to me nd i rly appreciate it. thank u so much for all ur kind msgs nd all the articles and all the graffiti.”

———

Two weeks later, out on patrol, he finds a book. It’s a handmade one, with a string spiraling through the holes on the left side to hold it together. The cover has a drawing of Spider-Man’s face shaped like a heart. It says, in very nice handwriting, “For the bad times” at the top, and “for you, Spider-Man” at the bottom. He clutches it to his chest and heads back home. 

Once home, he sits at his desk, turns his lamp on, and starts flipping through the book. It’s filled with fan letters and lists and drawings about, of, and for him. Tears start forming in his eyes, so he takes off the mask. When he’s done reading and looking at everything, he closes it and takes a picture of it. He posts the picture to Instagram with the caption “thank u so so much for all ur kind words and amazing drawings. all this love means sm to me nd i hope u guys kno i hv a lot of love nd appreciation for y’all”.

**Author's Note:**

> tough days are tUFF, homies. get them almost evry day or if im lucky evry othr day (eVRY OTHR DAYYYY) 
> 
> go listen to what's new pussy cat by tom jones (i think thts his name) if u hvnt already. nd listen to john mulaney's salt and pepper diner bit blease it's so fucking funny


End file.
